Out of the Madness (10 page)

An hour later, she returned happily. He had forgiven her, said he wouldn’t kill her. Now we could go on with our lives. Now
we could get the happiness that we saved people were due. But that was not to be the case for us or anyone I can recall who
went to any black church.

No matter how hard we prayed, stomped, and waited, few things changed. Occasionally someone would hand me a thrift pair of
pants or a shirt. Some members would get a car part or some old clothes, but nothing more. The church was teaching us how
to remain in the ghettos, shacks, and slums and beg every day for the decency that we should have been striving to get. No
emphasis was placed on self-improvement, education, self-reliance, better jobs, better housing, or extensive study of our
religious beliefs. It was just shut up and wait to die. And while you’re waiting, stay worried and deprived. And put your
last pennies in the offering bucket.

Eventually my brother was the first to stop attending the church; Sherrie would remain in church for a little longer but she
stopped attending, too. No matter how hard my mother tried, her peace of mind came only from the heroin. I kept attending
the services for a while, until I could no longer ignore the destruction I saw. People were going through the church like
it had revolving doors. Dozens of eager new faces, families, and single mothers dragging hungry babies were popping up each
Sunday. Looking for hope, a way out, some relief. They all stomped, wailed, cried, moaned, and waited. Some new members stayed
and joined one of the “special-interest groups.” Others would get that special car part or husband. But all of them always
emptied their pockets.

I also noticed how everyone became naturally disturbed when the sermon hinted around the color of the son of God and the origins
of the religion. The leaders’ knowledge of the religion was limited. And they could never answer the question of whether it
was truly ours.

Among the gossip, grief, hunger, and sorrow, my church activities diminished. I soon left, unannounced, never to return. We
had entered the revolving church doors depressed and nowhere. We came out more depressed and worse than nowhere.

T
o avoid the projects, I would explore the area surrounding where we lived in west Dallas. I found places like Hooky Hill,
the shack houses, and nearby public pools, which the older boys and I would sneak into at night. I stayed out late. The church
had dealt a tremendous blow to my already fragile hope. And it also had pushed my mother over the edge, caused her to abuse
her children as never before. After we had left the church, I really knew we would always be in these projects, suffering.

With Henry gone, the rotating fathers returned. My mom stopped selling drugs but again took up her drug routine, this time
with renewed desperation. She went back to her solace from reality. The kinder, gentler mother we had experienced for a few
weeks was gone. She was replaced by a monster who gave more beatings, did more screaming, and saw more men. The waves of cigarette
smoke, people, and dope kept our house like a cesspool.

One evening my mother called me into her bedroom. “Go borrow Momma a cigarette,” she said. Without looking at her, I walked
away. At least it gave me a reason to get out of the house. I headed to the corner where the dope dealers worked, where I
had learned that I could find plenty of smokers. One-arm Nathan sat underneath a tree, shading himself from the late sun.
Another man stood nearby, puffing on a cigarette. I walked up to him.

“My momma wants to know if she can borrow a cigarette,” I said.

Several seconds passed before the man showed any sign he had heard me. He suddenly looked down. “What did you say?”

“My mom wants a cigarette.”

Without looking at me, he talked toward the heavens, as if he were too embarrassed to face the child he was about to corrupt:
“I know where we can get a lot of money and you can buy your momma all the cigarettes you want.” The man looked at me for
the first time. He was coming down from a hard high. His eyes were red; his nose was running. He told me he knew where some
foreigners lived who were out of town and who had a lot of money. “If you help me carry their belongings to my car,” he said,
“I’ll give you some money.” Though nervous and scared, and only twelve, I went with him. The fiend was desperate for a fix.
I was desperate for everything.

Several blocks away we arrived at the back of a unit. The sun had just set, and the dark darkness was coming. He picked up
a brick near the apartment and shattered the glass. Uncautiously we walked over to the only thing of value in the unfurnished
apartment, a floor-model TV. We picked up the TV and carried it to a nearby car.

Nervously he shouted through the car window at someone sitting inside: “Wake your ass up, man.” The man came quickly from
his sleep, as if he had been waiting for the moment. I leaned against the car, trying to pretend I wasn’t scared. But I was
shaking like a wet puppy. The man got out of the car and helped his partner put the TV in the trunk. They got into the front
seat. Then I slipped into the backseat at his bidding, and we drove away.

After two turns we pulled into a parking lot on Fishtrap near my unit. Most of the streetlights were out, and as usual, the
projects were under a black night. People were standing around like so many fading shadows. The man and I entered an abandoned
unit, one that was a market for fiends and dealers. The driver waited for us.

“I’m gonna whoop your ass,” said a voice from the darkness. My mother came forward and grabbed me by my shirt. She was mad
as hell, seeing that her son was following in her footsteps. She lost the composure that experienced women like her kept and
for several seconds turned into a concerned mother. But my quick-thinking partner told her that he had just met me walking
up the street and had offered me money to help him carry the TV. Relieved, my mother sent me home after telling me she would
bring my money. As I walked home, I knew I would never see any of it.

My mother did not come back that night, and my sister came home late. This was every man for himself now, so I wasn’t concerned.
The next morning I dressed and went into the kitchen to make a ketchup sandwich, but the ketchup was all gone. All the food
was gone. Without hesitating, I began the walk to the shopping center, being sure to take the lake route to avoid Three Finger
Willie and Syrup Head. When I got there, I boldly walked into the store, stuck a bag of rice in my pants, and walked straight
out. And over the next few weeks, when my hunger would not let me rest, I stole again and again.

To steal food was no real challenge. I knew how the managers looked. The stores had no cameras, no mirrors. I would wait until
a section was free of customers, then stuff the can or the bag in my jacket or crotch. I didn’t really care. If I had been
spotted, I would have run circles around the white managers and darted out the door.

After stealing food became habitual, it was on to the toy store next to Tom Thumb. The personnel there were more watchful.
Even so, I once tried to walk out with a big toy truck. I was caught at the door. Police officers took me home, where my mother
promised a whooping, one I would never get.

Junior was back on his all-day buggy routines. Sherrie stayed away from the house with her boyfriend, Junebug, who lived north
of the projects in Richardson. She was spending nights at his house while telling my mother she was at his grandmother’s.
Our mother stayed locked away in her room. My stealing was increasing, and the stakes were becoming higher. Everyone was going
down a bad road. We became silent, hardly speaking to each other.

We worked harder: “Borrow Momma a cigarette, steal Momma some aspirin, go buy Momma a nerve pill.” She stayed angry and had
more seizures and fits than usual. She would fly from her room and whoop us with the first thing in sight. At night the house
seemed baneful, despair seemed bottomless. Behind her room door, my mother would cry and wail like she was possessed. Things
got so bad that people in the projects were predicting my mother would soon be murdered or go insane, and that the state people
would come and get us. But she made a final attempt to preserve her family. She jumped out of her trance. God knows where
she found the strength.

On that day, she had just come from using a neighbor’s phone and into the kitchen where my sister, brother, and I were. “Go
and pack some clothes,” she told us as she hurried up the stairs.

“Momma, where are we going?” I asked.

“We’re going to spend the summer with Sister Hill*.”

“Who is Sister Hill?”

“Jerrold, she’s someone I used to go to church with. Now quit bugging me, and go pack some clothes.” She disappeared up the
stairs.

An hour later, we had locked the house up and were waiting on the porch. An elderly man pulled his church van into the Fishtrap
parking lot and honked his car horn. My brother and I hurried to the church bus to avoid being seen by our friends. We were
ashamed of having this church man coming to get us. But a smile flashed across my mother’s face.

After a fifteen-minute drive, we arrived at the home of Sister Hill. She was a middle-aged woman who lived alone. Her four
children were grown and didn’t live there. Her poor black neighborhood was made up of houses and apartment complexes and located
on Dixon Circle, where a lot of filth and crime took place. She never had visitors, and the house stayed hot. But she was
nice, baked all kinds of goodies, and wailed like the people at the church.

The first few weeks, she and my mother sat around all day reading the Bible. My sister left to stay with a friend. The stress
on my brother and me eased. We would stay in the apartment all day, watching the new woman make candy apples, or would go
outside to catch fireflies in the surrounding woods. Once we had exhausted ourselves outdoors, we would lie and sweat on the
couches. It was the same routine for the first month: play, sweat, and sleep. And then Sister Hill’s lusty niece came around.

Jackie’s* skin was fair and silky. Only sixteen, she had the kind of body that attracted men. Her eyes always glistened with
a curiosity for what the world and men held for her. For excitement, she would visit the young boys in the apartment complex.
The minute her mom dropped her off, she would shoot out the door and not return until nightfall. Jackie would sleep in one
of the bedrooms, even though the house stayed cooler in the living room. She usually ignored my brother and me, until one
day she asked my mother if I could walk her to the store.

Jackie and I worked our way through the complex to a street that led to the neighborhood grocery. Everyone was outside making
noise—families, kids, wine heads, street peddlers. Though the sun had begun to set, it was still hot.

“Jerrold, what did you do every day at your house?” she asked as we walked to the store.

“I mostly kept to myself.”

“Did you have a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Have you ever had a girl before?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

I lied. “I’ve had a whole lot of girls.”

Jackie smiled. “Quit lying, boy. You haven’t had sex.”

Several girls walked past us. They exchanged frowns with Jackie. She dropped the conversation and asked me if I wanted anything
from the store. but on the way back she started again.

“I’m gonna see what you’re all about tonight.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, already knowing exactly what she meant.

“I’m gonna be the first to have you.”

We ate a small dinner, then got ready for bed. Later that night, Jackie began to work her womanly magic, fulfilling her prediction.
She decided to sleep in the living room. Since there were only two couches, she would have to share a couch with someone.
She chose the one I slept on, the one close to the window. Sister Hill and my mother, after staying in the hot apartment all
day, dozed quickly. My brother soon joined them.

Jackie squeezed her slim body onto the couch and snuggled herself close to my private parts. Then, after a while, she began
to move back and forth. Not wanting to seem soft, I moved along with her. She moved and moved, as if she were being satisfied.

She then etched words into my memory that I have never forgotten, that I would hear again from another who would also take
advantage of a child. “Jerrold, I know you can do it good. I’m gonna go back in the room. You wait awhile, then come back
there with me.” Before rising, she said, “Do it for me, baby.” I watched her walk to the back room. After her warm words,
which made something deep inside me respond, I followed her into the room and shut the door behind me.

* * *

When that summer came to an end in 1984, we returned to our old unit, where the tension still dwelled. Things quickly went
back to normal—washing sinks full of pots and pans, cleaning up bathrooms, mopping tile floors. My mom made us do everything.
I began to think we were slaves. She would send us to a neighbor’s house to buy her pain pills for a dollar fifty each. If
the neighbor was out, we were told to walk miles to other places, even if it was three o’clock in the morning. She started
smoking more cigarettes. And we were sent to buy or steal them. I hated it, hated the cigarette smoke, hated the slave work.
But the cool words “Do it for Momma” did me in every time. Kindness was so rare.

“Bring Momma’s house shoes, wash out Momma’s panties.” And I hardly ever objected, because if I did, I would receive one of
those terrible beatings with an extension cord or get slapped across the face. One time, before one of her blows landed, I
darted out the door and called her a bitch. I climbed a tree until I thought the action had cooled down. Wash out Momma’s
panties, do this for Momma, do that for Momma. My brother and I continued to leave the house early so we wouldn’t have to
slave for Momma all day.

Then it finally happened. One day in autumn, the mailman delivered the notice that we had thirty days to vacate our project
unit. We had no money. The gorilla workers would soon come. During that time, my mother stayed depressed and finally broke.